PAIS Alliance

The PAIS Alliance, meaning Proud and Sovereign Fatherland (Spanish: Pa'tria Altiva y S'oberana''), is a democratic socialist political party in Ecuador, founded by Rafael Correa in 2006 in preparation for the presidential election that year. The PAIS Alliance won the runoff electoral vote, and Correa was elected President of Ecuador, and it became a major party in the country, with a membership of 1,500,000 people in 2011. In 2009, for the first time in thirty years, Ecuador re-elected a president, with Correa serving another term in office. The PAIS Alliance oversaw Ecuador's rise to become the third-largest economy in South America and the reduction of poverty from 40% to 17% by 2017, and it was one of the many successful socialist parties on the continent.